Gaz Coombes Talks 'World's Strongest Man' Album, Performs In-Studio

posted by Andrew Magnotta -

Mar 13, 2018

Gaz Coombes began his career as a touring musician while still a young teenager, and it's the only life he's ever known.

Nowadays, when he's not touring, Coombes embarks on most of his creative expeditions from the comfort of his home studio. But working on his music in the same house in which his wife and two daughters live isn't without its...complications, he tells Q104.3 New York's "Out of the Box" with Jonathan Clarke.

Gaz tells the show that he basically took over an entire floor of his house while tracking his new album, World's Strongest Man, due out May 4. His wife might not have been thrilled about the mess of wires and expensive synthesizers strewn about the house, but it seemed to excite his daughters well enough.

While Gaz self-produced the new album, his girls offered him plenty of insight and feedback throughout the recording process, whether or not he asked.

"They often kind of steam into the studio, mid-vocal take or something," Gaz says. "I have to go easy on them because their enthusiasm is kind of admirable, but you have just interrupted daddy..."

While he didn't say whether he would continue recording at home in the future, Gaz says regardless of the challenge it presents to his patience (and that of his wife), he thinks it's good for the children to grow up learning the language of music and all of its infinite possibilities.

"It's good for the kids, as well, just to be in a house that's creative," he says. "You can go in and jump on a drum kit or sit and play piano."

And yes, the title of the album, World's Strongest Man, is an oblique reference to fatherhood—to being in charge of something important while also being at its mercy in a way.

"It's more playful and self-deprecating," he says of the title. "But I thought it was also kind of important to highlight how this powerful male thing is kind of getting old."

Watch the full interview above, including Gaz's in-studio performance of "The Girl Who Fell to Earth."